


the moon does all its work before dawn

by perihadion



Series: the perfect places of Sleep [1]
Category: Shadow Hearts
Genre: "give up the ghost" by radiohead vibes, Angst, Canon Compliant, F/M, Implied Sexual Content
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-13
Updated: 2019-05-13
Packaged: 2020-03-02 18:03:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,537
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18816175
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/perihadion/pseuds/perihadion
Summary: Set around Rouen in the original game. Alice visits Yuri overnight, he thanks her for saving his life.





	the moon does all its work before dawn

**Author's Note:**

> The title of this fic comes from the Federico García Lorca poem "Gacela of the Dark Death".

Yuri was frustrated.

There was some dark power at work that he did not understand. Well, that was nothing new: ever since his own strange power had awakened within him he had known that there were forces at work in the world that he did not understand. His father had disappeared, his mother had died, and he had become a monster. He had accepted it a long time ago — and when the mysterious voice had started speaking to him, telling him what to do, well, that was one more thing. It split his head open but it made life a little more interesting.

Things were different now. He had met someone he cared about. Now the forces he did not understand threatened not just his own life but the life of the people he travelled with — and one in particular.

They had chased Roger Bacon from Asia to Europe. Yuri had fused with an old god in China and almost lost himself entirely. He knew that the final confrontation with Bacon would ask even more of him and he would give it. But also he knew it might not be enough to prevent what came next. He understood nothing, and he was frustrated.

He had always had nightmares. Since he had subdued the Seraphic Radiance the souls inside of him had quietened and the nightmares had subsided but he still struggled to sleep. That was why most nights he would slip out and look for demons to fight until dawn. It was not training, nothing so directed as that. He was not developing his fusions. It was raw, animalistic, losing himself in the fight until he was exhausted enough to sleep for a few hours before the others woke up.

This night it had rained, washed the blood and dirt and sin from him. He shrugged out of his wet coat and hung it by the door. He had been about to strip down and get into bed when he heard a small noise and then, “Yuri?”

He looked over at the bed where Alice was sitting. She looked tired — had she slept there? It took him a moment to gather his thoughts. Then he chuckled and said, “What are you doing here? Don’t you know it’s not proper to be alone in a man’s room?”

She flushed a little, standing up and straightening her skirts. She ignored his question, instead asking, “Where have you been?”

He made a dismissive gesture, “Oh, you know. Here and there.”

She looked sad. “Fighting?”

Yuri crossed to the fireplace and started building a fire. Since he couldn’t take his clothes off he should probably try to dry out a little. “You know me,” he responded.

The fire crackled into life, casting a dim golden glow on the room. He stood and turned to her. The light flickered over her skin. It played off her stray hairs as she turned her head, creating comet trails in the darkness. She must have slept on his bed while she waited for him. He wanted nothing more than to reach out and touch her: her hair, her skin, her lips. “You worried about me?”

She nodded, “A little bit.”

He shrugged. “Don’t be.” He shadow-boxed in the dark, and then turned to smile at her. “I’ve been doing this since I was a kid.”

She smiled and then turned her big, moon-like eyes on him and shook her head. “That’s not what I’m worried about.”

Oh.

He took a step closer. In the dim glow of the room she shone intoxicatingly. He was so nervous he felt the blood rush through every part of his body and monsters whispered through his head. “You know, Alice,” he said. “We haven’t been alone much lately.” She looked away and he shook his head, “Ah, I mean. I haven’t had a chance to say thank you.”

“Thank you?”

He nodded. “For what you did for me.”

*

Alice was tired.

She had been tired ever since they had found Yuri in Bistrița and she had taken the curse from the Four Masks for his soul. Whenever she found herself in darkness she saw them floating before her, intangible but threatening, and she could not sleep with a candle because the flickering light distracted her and conjured even more doubts and visions.

She knocked on Yuri’s door but there was no answer. She knew that Yuri was in general a light sleeper but there were occasional times when he was dead to the world so she pushed the door. Maybe she could curl up beside him and feel his dark aura driving even darker things away long enough to drift off into fitful sleep. She knew that he would not mind, would not even say anything about it.

The bed was empty, so was the rest of the room. She looked around, standing in the doorway, wondering whether to leave. Instead she took a step in, closing the door behind her, resolved to wait for him.

She sat down on the bed, overcome with fatigue. The whole room smelled of him, but especially the bedclothes. It was a strong, masculine, but not unpleasant scent. She took her shoes off, lining them up neatly by the bed, and lay down on her side, wondering where he was, when he would return.

It was raining hard outside. Alice wondered if Yuri were caught out in it. Whenever they had been caught in rain on the road he had just laughed and spread his arms and said, “Little bit of rain never hurt me. I’ve seen worse than this.” Then he would smile at her and take off his overcoat, putting it around her shoulders, saying, “I heard about the weather in England but I know you spent more time indoors than me.”

She had never told him but she loved the rain for this reason. The coat was far too big for her, old, and warm, and it smelled like him. She would pull it around her and breathe him in, and feel safe. From behind wet hair she would watch him walking through the rain like it didn’t touch him, his old red sweatshirt clinging to him, rivulets of water running from his hair down the nape of his neck, and making her heart pound.

She heard the door shut and sat up. “Yuri?”

He looked exhausted, beaten up. There was a cut above his eye. The blood mixed with rainwater and ran down his face. He was also soaking wet and staring at her as if he had never seen a woman before in his life. He said something which made her blush and avoid his gaze as he crossed the room to light the fire.

She saw that his hands were cut up, knuckles raw and bleeding. Then the fire burst into life, casting shadows from him. He was beautiful. This was the man she had followed from China to Romania, whose soul she had seen into. He had frightened her at first, seemed like a brute. But she knew he had a capacity for love and tenderness within him that few people possessed.

He stood, fought with shadows, smiled at her. The whole time his red sweater clung to his body, his red hair clung to his forehead, and she just wanted to reach out and touch him.

“I haven’t had a chance to say thank you,” he said. “For what you did for me.”

She swallowed. “Yuri, you’re soaking wet,” she said. He tilted his head, confused. She smiled at him and then put her hands to his waist, grabbing the hem of his sweatshirt, and looked into his eyes. He stared at her as if he couldn’t understand what was happening, but let her gently pull his top off and drop it to the floor.

His body was covered with scars. She knew he had always been a fighter. He was trembling. She put her hand over his heart.

“Alice, can I —?” he said. Alice met his eyes. Tentatively, slowly, he leaned down and kissed her. Then he pulled her into him, kissed her face all over, her neck, her mouth, whispered something to her in Japanese. She didn’t understand the words but she knew what he meant. She felt the same way. She kissed him back, harder, fiercer, digging her fingernails into his back.

He was pulling her clothes off. She could feel the monsters in his soul roiling. They fell into the bed together and Alice knew she did not have to explain why she had come to his room that night, or why she would come back every night that they had left. “I’ll never let them take you,” Yuri whispered in her ear but she knew he would have no choice in the matter. It had been her decision. She would make it again in a heartbeat. She would always choose the same way.

He fell asleep before her. She ran her fingers over the scars on his chest, the comet trails in his skin, and placed her hand over his heart, watching it rise and fall with his breath. He was her man, her demigod. She would always protect him.

**Author's Note:**

> I don't know if anyone cares at all about these games any more but I have been replaying them and remembering why I love Yuri and Alice so much (individually and together). I couldn't stop thinking about them so I wanted to write a little scenario.


End file.
